Ed Miliband is heading for a new clash with Labour’s trade union backers and Barry George, wrongly convicted of murdering Jill Dando, takes his bid for compensation to the Court of Appeal today

Ed Miliband is heading for a new clash with Labour’s trade union backers as he sets out plans finally to end the system where individual union members are automatically affiliated to the party.

In the wake of the Falkirk ballot-rigging scandal, the Labour leader will use a keynote speech today to set out what aides are describing as the “biggest party reforms in a generation”.

The changes are intended to strengthen the party’s links with its individual members while diluting the influence of the trade union barons.

May to claw back EU crime powers

Home Secretary Theresa May is expected to unveil plans to claw back permanently almost 100 criminal justice measures from the European Union while retaining the controversial European Arrest Warrant.

In a compromise agreement with Liberal Democrats, it is reported she will tell MPs the UK will continue to support 35 EU powers – including Europol, the EU intelligence-sharing agency which co-ordinates police investigations across the bloc.

In a move to reassure Tory MPs who wanted her to go further in repatriating power from Brussels, The Guardian reported that she will say she intends to work with like-minded member states to reform the European Arrest Warrant.

Ruling due on whole-life sentences

Europe’s human rights judges will rule today on whether British courts’ powers to lock up the most dangerous prisoners for the rest of their lives amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Murderer Jeremy Bamber and two other killers, Douglas Vinter and Peter Moore, claim that condemning them to spend the rest of their lives behind bars is against their human rights.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) disagreed in January, but the Strasbourg-based court’s Grand Chamber agreed to hear a further appeal and will release its judgment this morning.

Barry George in compensation bid

Barry George, who spent eight years in prison after being wrongly convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando, takes his bid for compensation as a victim of a “’miscarriage of justice” to the Court of Appeal today.

The latest legal move follows the dismissal of his claim by two High Court judges in January.

Lord Justice Beatson and Mr Justice Irwin rejected his claim that the Justice Secretary unfairly and unlawfully decided he was “not innocent enough to be compensated”.

Search power monitoring ‘slipped’

The police watchdog has warned of a “noticeable slippage” in attention given to the use of stop and search powers by senior officers since the 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry as an inspection found more than one in four searches to be unlawful.

After renewed concern about the way police use stop and search on the back of the 2011 riots, Home Secretary Theresa May ordered Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to conduct its first ever inspection of the use of the powers in all 43 forces in England and Wales.

Around 27% of the 8,783 stop and search records examined did not include sufficient grounds to justify the lawful use of the power, the watchdog discovered.

Egyptian election timetable issued

Egypt’s interim president has issued a swift timetable for the process of changing the constitution, setting parliamentary and presidential elections for early 2014.

Under the constitutional declaration by Adly Mansour late last night, he would create two appointed committees to work out amendments to the Islamist-drafted constitution passed under ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

A referendum on the new document would be held within four months.

Kidnap women’s ‘thanks’ for support

Three women held captive in a US home for a decade are thanking the public for their support in a YouTube video.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight broke their public silence in the video, saying the encouragement of family, friends and the public has enabled them to restart their lives.

Former bus driver Ariel Castro has pleaded not guilty to 329 charges alleging that he kidnapped the women off the streets between 2002 and 2004 and held them captive in his two-storey home in Cleveland, Ohio.

Pollution ‘cuts China lifespans’

A new study has linked heavy air pollution from coal burning to shorter lives in northern China.

Researchers estimate that the half-billion people alive there in the 1990s will live an average of 5.5 years less than their southern counterparts because they breathed dirtier air.

China itself made the comparison possible – for decades, a now-discontinued government policy provided free coal for heating, but only in the colder north.

Regular bedtime ‘helps brain power’

Giving young children regular bedtimes could help boost their brain power, a new study suggests.

Researchers have found that inconsistent bedtimes are linked to children’s cognitive development. The authors warned that there could be “knock-on” health effects throughout life.

They wanted to assess whether the time a child went to bed, and the consistency of bed-times, had any impact on their intellectual performance, measured by testing their reading, maths and spatial awareness.

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